


On One Hand

by lovelesswonder



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, I disliked ben at first but now i will die for him, Kissing, Long-Distance Relationship, Romance, how could they end the series like that, i was screaming, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23975008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelesswonder/pseuds/lovelesswonder
Summary: Ben could count the amount of times they kissed on one hand. With Devi's move to India, he didn't think it would increase. But maybe in the future?
Relationships: Ben Gross/Devi Vishwakumar
Comments: 14
Kudos: 257





	On One Hand

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't expect to like the show as much as I did (Devi is messy but you know what, I still love her), and I spent like two sleepless nights because I kept thinking about the characters and like I honestly love Ben he's a cinnamon roll with some salt but like it makes it taste better. Anyways, I couldn't sleep, and I had to write this, so here it is!

They don’t talk about the kiss. It’s hard to when Devi’s mom comes banging on the window, demanding she stops locking lips with him and get in the car with them. While Devi argues with her mom, Ben sinks down in his seat, mortification making his ears burn. Devi lets out a groan as she opens the door and follows her mom back to their car, but she shoots Ben a small smile as she goes. 

Ben watches Devi leave wistfully, sure they’ll talk about it the next day at school.

Only, when Devi comes to school, the first thing she tells him (and those four others he bought coffee for) is that she’s only going to be in town to finish sophomore year and then she’s moving to India. Of course, everyone immediately starts shouting out, and Devi has to fend off all their questions and concerns.

With everyone’s shock and confusion, there isn’t a chance to talk about it.

Ben’s only saving grace is that Devi is too busy with the move and “being a better friend” that she basically forgets about Paxton except for when she says hi to him in class and during lunches. There are no more long stares or love-struck sighs, and after some time, Paxton starts making moves on some other girls, and Devi doesn’t even seem to notice!

On the other hand, that means Devi is too busy to talk about their kiss as well.

Ben feels the overwhelming desire to ask her what it means for them, because they kissed twice, but with the looming move and the upcoming tests, he sadly just pushes it away and resolved to spend time with her before she leaves. 

They settle into a snarky, teasing friendship that’s much nicer than their old snapping, fighting one. Now that they’re friends, it means that Ben’s also friends with Eleanor, who’s gone back to wearing her floral craziness, and Fabiola, who’s still the same except the addition of the blonde girl on her arm sometimes. He doesn’t quite know if he’s friends with Jonah or their significant others, but they’re nice enough to him. 

He has to admit spending lunch and break with the UNs are much more fun than spending it with Shira and her friends, so after he flakes on her too many times, she breaks up with him with a monotone, “You’re rich, but like that’s not enough anymore”. Their break up brings him sympathy and pity from his new friends, and he manfully chooses not to say “I’d rather date Devi than Shira any day”.

Sometimes, when Devi gets into another argument with her mom, she makes her way to his house where they’ll watch a movie or throw candy at each other. He finds himself glancing at her whenever she laughs or makes a stupid joke, but he tamps down the desire to pull her closer and press their lips together. She has a lot on her plate, he reasons.

When dinner time comes, Devi’s mom arrives to pick up her wayward daughter, and the two apologize to each other. Afterwards, she always invites him to eat dinner with them, and even though Devi groans and rolls her eyes, she always pulls him by the elbow to join them in her mom’s car. He has a sneaky suspicion that half the “arguments” Devi has with her mom are fake, but he can’t find it in himself to care too much when he gets to eat with people he cares for and likes. Not that he doesn’t care for or like Patty, but she gets paid to be there.

Weeks pass, and Ben makes more memories with everyone, and he falls a little bit more in love with Devi each day. He surprisingly finds it easier to deal with when she begins packing up all her belongings, the move becoming more real to him. She’s going to be halfway across the world. After this year, they’ll never greet each other at the lockers, never argue in class, never have dinner again, and they probably won’t be able to kiss again. It makes him want to grab her and just hold her tight and never let her go, but he resists it. Devi is her own woman, and she’ll be fine. They’ll be fine.

The last week of school dawns, and when they’ve all taken their last final exam, they all decide to go hang out at Ben’s house. “Promise you’ll keep in touch!” Eleanor implores, and Devi laughs.

“Of course! We’ll be Face Timing and calling each other so much. You guys have to tell me everything that happens. That goes for you too, Gross,” Devi adds, looking at him with shining eyes. Is she tearing up? 

“Yeah. Sure.” He swallows dryly. They spend some time goofing off, hoping time will freeze, but all too soon, Devi’s mom is there. The two of them bid the girls goodbye, and Devi shares a teary hug with her best friends. Eleanor and Fabiola leave, and Devi’s mom turns to him.

“How about a final dinner, Ben?” She asks and he obviously agrees. The dinner is solemn despite Kamala and Devi dropping jokes, and Ben feels a deep ache in his soul at the thought of tomorrow. All of the sudden, he feels overwhelming regret for never telling her his feelings, but he harshly shuts that thought down. She’s leaving tomorrow; what good would it do?

After dinner, they’re washing the dishes together when Ben looks up and sees Devi in the dim lights of the kitchen. She has a splatter of soap suds on her cheek, and she’s laughing at a joke her made, and Ben thinks he maybe wants to be with her forever. The thought startles him to the core because he knew he liked Devi, but this was going over the line of like, and they’re not even dating. He can count the number of times they’ve kissed on one hand, for goodness sake. Ben is a logical, rational boy, but he’s also a human teenage boy who is reckless with his emotions. 

He leans in, and Devi peers at him from underneath her eyelashes, but she doesn’t move away.

Their third kiss isn’t like their first or second one, which were exhilarating. This one is a bit more sad and soft, with hidden promises that may or may not come to pass. When they break free, Devi clears her throat awkwardly and looks down.

“I’m going to miss you, David,” Ben confesses.

“I’m going to miss you too, Gross,” she replies, and they share a secretive smile. They still don’t really talk about it, but Ben thinks it’s alright. They’ll be alright.

Princeton is huge, and he doesn’t see anyone he knows (which is to be expected, after all he graduated valedictorian and since the salutatorian isn’t Devi, nobody else was going to get accepted from that high school, and orientation was cancelled due to a pandemic). He looks around at the milling students and lets out a sigh. 

Since he’s alone and awkward, and he still has fifteen minutes before class starts, he pulls out his phone and sends a snap of himself grinning on campus to Devi. “Guess who made it?” He types out before sending it to her.

The two of them had kept in touch through the past two years. There were monthly Netflix parties, weekly FaceTime calls, and daily snaps and texts. Of course, Eleanor and Fabiola were there for most of it. Sometimes Jonah and Eve joined, but it was usually the four of them.

Over the course of two years, Ben had two other girlfriends. Those relationships never lasted long because they weren’t Devi and her brash, witty self. He would never say it out loud, but she’s the only one that ever made him feel something whether it was negative or positive. Devi, on her part, had one relationship that ended three days later and an arranged marriage stint Ben didn’t really understand.

During their late night calls, when both of them are tired and more loose and vulnerable, they touch around the topic of their kisses and relationship, and Ben knows they both still have feelings for each other. Sometimes she’ll bring up the day at the beach when she spread her father’s ashes, and she’ll laugh and say, “Remember how you waited for me?” Ben always say yes, but he’ll end it there, never saying what he truly wants to say, which is, “I’ll always wait for you”. With half the world around them and a time difference of a whole day between the two of them, and their immature age, they both know they can’t start anything. Ben has a flashback to that time at Model UN where she basically nuked him, and he shivers.

Ben had hoped graduation and college would mean that would change, but Devi had been oddly secretive about her acceptance letters. He knows she definitely applied to Princeton, but she also applied to several prestigious colleges in India as well as other Ivy Leagues. He knows she told Eleanor, who’s going to UCLA, and Fabiola, who’s going to California’s institute of technology, where she was planning on going, but she refused to tell him, only teasing him blurred snaps of her college’s color and her dorm room.

His phone vibrates, and his heart skips a beat when he sees it’s a snap from Devi. He opens it, and for a minute he only stares at it in confusion. It’s showing a familiar looking figure wearing a blue polo and cargo pants standing between two trees, and he finally realizes why the person looks so familiar.

It’s him.

He whirls around, figuring out the direction and angle she must be at in order to take a picture of him and there–

He darts over and grabs her wrist. She’s laughing at him as he huffs at her in confusion, shock preventing him from forming any real words.

“Wha–how–why?” He finally manages to say, and she grins at him.

“Surprise! I got in Princeton, obviously. And I accepted it, also obviously.”

“You didn’t tell me!” He says accusingly.

“I wanted it to be a surprise. Originally, I wanted to surprise you at orientation, but you know what happened.”

Ben finally realizes the situation, and he experiences joy, excitement, shock, and a whole myriad of things he doesn’t quite know. Devi is here. In front of him. After two years of only seeing her in the screen, Devi is physically in front of him. His grip on her wrist turns gentle, and he hesitantly pulls her forward. Her laughter dies out as the tension between them grows palpable.

“Hey,” Ben says breathlessly. He knows they’ll have to have an actual conversation about this relationship, but right now there’s only one thing he wants. He leans in, and when Devi’s eyes close, he presses his lips to hers.

They kiss each other, mouths moving together softly, as if they’ve done this many times before and Ben just relishes in having her in his arms until a group of students walk by them and one of them murmurs a scathing, “people really need to keep it in their pants; it’s literally the first day of classes”.

The two of them break apart, and Ben swallows heavily. “Hey,” he tells her again, and Devi lets out a chuckle.

“Hey,” she says huskily.

The campus clock goes off, signaling a new hour, and Ben curses. He‘s late for class.

“I have to go to class.” He regretfully says. He normally would care that he’s late because he has to make a good impression on the teachers in order to talk to them and get their advice, but it’s an intro psychology class, and he’s a confused freshman. He’s sure Professor Engle will cut him some slack. He hesitates now though because he really does want to talk to her.

“I’ll send you my schedule,” she says, seeing his worry. “We should meet up for lunch. I don’t know anybody here, and I don’t want to eat alone. And then maybe we can talk?”

“Of course,” he says giddily. They exchange schedules and make plans to see each other, and Ben turns to leave. As he turns to head to class, Ben feel ten times lighter, which somehow means he’s feeling ten times braver, so he turns around quickly, which startles Devi. He brackets her face between his hands and lean in to press one more kiss to her lips. “I really, really missed you,” he confesses. “And I kinda like you.” She lets out a huff of amusement as he lets her go.

“I missed you too,” she responds. “And I like you too. Now go to class!” Ben jogs off, thinking this is the happiest day of his life so far, including the day both of his parents came home and stayed home for more than two hours with him. As he heads into the building, he looks back to see Devi touching her lips in amazement. Ben grins to himself.

He can still count the number of kisses they’ve shared on one hand, but he’s sure that’ll change soon. He enters the class, grinning widely, and then has to sit through a passive-aggressive lecture on punctuality and responsibility, but he can’t bring himself to care. All of the sudden, the future seemed so much brighter for him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this! I'm now going to work on a Geralt apologizes to Jaskier fic because I honestly can't with that episode.


End file.
